The only negative thing I could say about it is the location of the narthex being separated from the nave by the parish hall. Other than that, it looks like a beautiful building. I like the side chapel and the overall layout of the nave/sanctuary.

Sorry, don't like the idea that everything must be stuck together. IMO it would be better to have separate church and separate community building.

Sometimes it has to be that way, plus it is easier to heat and cool one building, and cheaper to do so. There are a lot of reasons for keeping them in one building.

As some others have said, my only reservations from an artistic and historical perspective is that it does not have an entrance separate from the parish hall. I understand the idea of combining different buildings together, but I do not think it is necessary to reduce the qualities of the entrance to the church to be in fact entrance to the parish hall and putting a baptistery where the entrance should be.

The appearance of the section for a baptistery that looks from the outside like a second apse is probably the part I am most frustrated with. This kind of combination has been done by byzantine rite churches before as well, sometimes with the exact same issues, others not, these criticisms are not unique to this blueprint by any means.

The building is for the most part good and traditional. It will be a fine example of a western rite orthodox church in the USA.I like it, it reminds me of the SSPX seminary blueprints for Charlottesville, VA, which are also Romanesque in essence.

Fr. Patrick and his congregation surely deserve to have a building this attractive. With all their struggles to achieve this it will be very rewarding and fulfilling to have this building finished and in use ASAP.

« Last Edit: January 23, 2013, 07:08:54 PM by Christopher McAvoy »

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"and for all who are Orthodox, and who hold the Catholic and Apostolic Faith, remember, O Lord, thy servants" - yet the post-conciliar RC hierarchy is tolerant of everyone and everything... except Catholic Tradition, for modernists are as salt with no taste, to be “thrown out and trampled under foot

That doesn't look that Western to me but that is probably due to my lack of knowledge about history of architecture. I wonder if this will be first newly built Western Orthodox church for last thousand years? Not bad achievement at all.